Fairytale
by Cyprith
Summary: Charon had never been much for stories, but this one was worth it. Charon/OC. Serious fluff.


Fairytale

Summary: Charon had never been much for stories, but this one was worth it.

Warnings: Oh, the fluff!

Author's Note: This is for Sparrowinsky/Haisley because she's a horrible person that writes addictive distracting things and then _doesn't finish them immediately_.

—0—

Charon has never been much for stories. There had never been time. War and training for war has consumed his every waking moment since childhood. He doesn't expect he would have heard many even had the situation been different though. Stories encouraged thought, after all, and that had never been a popular concept among the leaders of his clan. But he likes this story. It's simple. Elegant. It begins and ends exactly the same.

With her.

*

As a rule, Charon didn't like people. He did what he was told whether he liked it or not, kept his back to the wall and his gun trained on Ahzrukhal. No more. No less. The Underworld ghouls knew to steer clear of him and the few smoothskins that passed through were jumpy enough around _zombies_ without striking up a chat with him. His sole purpose in life was to stand in the corner and watch for trouble.

He found it sure enough. Knew the kid was trouble the second he laid eyes on her and found her looking back with a gleam in her eyes he hadn't seen fixed on him in years.

"Your boy over there," she'd asked Ahzrukhal. "How much?"

And Ahzrukhal had just _looked_ at her, trying to process the fact that not only was there a smoothskin asking casually after his six-foot-eight bodyguard, but that the smoothskin in question had called him a _boy_.

Immediately, Charon liked her. And it was probably just the look she had about her—the air of a woman that knows how to use the gun at her hip as well as the man in front of her—but he was fucking _sick_ of standing in this goddamned corner with his back seizing up and he was ready to see some action.

So when Ahzrukhal named an exorbitant price and the kid came back that night to get the money she needed from the bastard's safe, Charon only sat back in his shadows and watched. After all, Ahzrukhal _had_ said to _watch_ for trouble. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't specified what Charon was supposed to _do_ about it.

*

Ahzrukhal hadn't been happy about it. It was obvious the money was his and the kid was too damn smug to hide it. She had real balls coming in here like she owned the place, buying shit from Ahzrukhal with his own money. But they both knew she was too popular with the rest of Underworld for him to do anything and now that his safe was empty, he needed the money Charon could bring more than he needed the man in the corner.

There was a certain poetic justice in the transaction, Charon had thought as he watched that tattered piece of paper change hands.

There was also a certain poetic justice to it when the kid sauntered back to him with a wink and a smirk and pressed that tattered piece of paper into his hand.

And it was funny, he'd thought as he'd watched Ahzrukhal's brain splatter against the empty safe, how completely she owned him now that she'd set him free.

*

And when they'd stood together on the Jefferson rotunda, staring at the radiated chamber and damn near drawing straws to see who got to die first, Charon came to a decision. He was supposedly immune to radiation. His clan had damn well seen to that with their faulty science and botched experiments. If it was only radiation, why couldn't it be him?

So while the women bickered and the super mutant stood shifting anxiously nearby, Charon pressed the button on the intercom, gave the order and stepped inside the chamber. He knew the code. She'd had him memorize it months ago _just in case something happens to me_.

The look on her face as he'd grinned out at her, the Purifier purring like a kitten at his back had made the whole thing worth it.

*

Later, with him sequestered in the make-shift infirmary, chugging down packs of Rad-Away to keep from accidentally tainting anyone else, she'd snuck in to see him. She'd had that look in her eyes he'd seen the day they'd met, but this time—this time she kissed him. And suddenly there was fire and passion and the stress and fury of the last few days _exploded_ in a burst of raw emotion. And before he knew it, he had her pinned against the bed and there were clever fingers working at the buckles to his armor as he divested her of her own.

"If I go feral," he'd murmured, nipping at her throat, "I'm eating you first."

And she'd laughed, struggling out from under him to push him to the bed with a wicked grin and a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"Fine by me," she'd said and proceeded to set his world on fire.

*

So now, roaming through the wastes with her fighting at his side, Charon's pretty sure this is one story he likes the sound of. Because it's her and it's him and he doesn't like people but most days it feels like they're the only ones left in the world. And when he wakes up in the middle of the night to find she's twined her legs in his and stolen the covers again, Charon couldn't be happier.

He's got his happily ever after.


End file.
